Paksworldhttp://www.paksworld.com/blog
Sat, 05 Nov 2016 04:15:36 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Up From the Depths…http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2640
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2640#commentsSat, 05 Nov 2016 04:05:50 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2640Bubbles rise to the surface of the murky water…the water-lily pads bob up and down…somewhere something is moving, but nobody can quite see what it is…until a large blob, crowned with two water lily pads and a glob of slime that drips down a face obscured by a wetsuit hood, rises to the surface.

Well, it’s like this. September did not go as planned (you might have seen that coming) and the plan to cut back on the novel’s daily wordage to allow wordage for the story due November 1 was derailed by a novel itself, all the political stuff (including multiple phone calls a day which–even if unanswered–mean I jerk uncontrollably when the phone at my elbow rings), having gone back to singing at church which meant the extra weekly trip to/from the city even though I left for home in time to get there by 10 pm (meaning I cut part of choir practice, which led to, naturally, some stress on Sunday mornings.) I didn’t sing the All Souls requiem service this year; couldn’t summon the energy. They did Cavalli…a rarely performed but gorgeous early baroque requiem that fits in well with the liturgy of our church.

For a more colorful view of how writing went during October, please wander over to Universes to read about it, because it’s really long and I didn’t want to copy it here. I think it’s funny. In brief, a train wreck between competing stories and deadlines. Three steps back in the recovery process because of having to stay up later than I should to try to get the story due finished by November 1. This week has been getting that done and then recovering (partially) from the strain. On the bright side, the novel is over its snit at being ignored completely for 9 days and today delivered unto me a lovely scene which will need a lot of work, but has good bones. It’s at 77,400 (approx, actually a little more) at the moment.

Someone elsewhere asked if I was doing NaNoWriMo this year, and as usual I said No, because I’m partway through something. I will, however, be writing diligently at least 5 days a week, as usual, and some weeks 6 and 7. Hopefully without having to stay up past midnight, night after night, again, because that’s bad for me and it’s also bad for my writing.

What else: Well, over 100 bur oak acorns have now been planted on our place. 80 acres that’s mostly not trees has plenty of room for more trees. We know most of them won’t sprout. But we also know some of them probably will, and bur oaks have all the advantages. Native, drought-tolerant, disease resistant, providing habitat for a wide variety of wildlife from the invertebrates (specific butterflies) to mammals, food for the same range, somewhat open shade, survive grass fires if old enough (very thick bark), long-lived. We also plant seeds from other native trees, shrubs, forbs, and grass, but the bur oaks are the largest, potentially, and one of my favorite plants. This year the acorns we collected (are still collecting) are from trees we planted as acorns…the new trees will be grandchildren of the first acorns we brought home from bur oaks we found here and there, all within thirty miles of here.

This cluster of acorns is on a tree whose acorns were planted 13 years ago. They’re still green here, image taken a couple of weeks before they matured. Tree it came from is in right hand image. Bur oaks stay tiny for years (and need protection against deer or cattle at that stage) but these 13 year olds don’t need a chicken-wire surrounds now.

Left: 100 bur oak acorns in a basket, mostly from the older yard trees. The day before we picked these up, one of the same yard trees yielded 40 acorns. The day after, there were more.

Right: This is the only bur oak we planted that wasn’t grown from an acorn: my mother bought a pitiful looking seedling from a roadside seller–one of its two little branches broken, wind-whipped and dry–for one dollar. The remaining branch turned into a a true “leader” and the tree is now straight, tall, and doing well. It’s now about 28 years old. We have two other acorn-planted bur oaks in the back yard just as tall, and another just outside the back yard a little taller. And a young seedling that will someday replace (some of) the trees we had to take out last winter.

Cold Welcome is now proceeding steadily through the production process, expected to make its April debut without a hitch. New Novel doesn’t have a confirmed title yet, though I made a suggestion to Editor (in mid-October) that she liked, but it has to pass the other elements. So there’s that. The book after this is beginning to suggest itself but not yet with any energy. I need to stay healthy to write–that much is clear–and therefore schedules must be arranged that promote it.

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=26405So It Goeshttp://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2637
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2637#commentsTue, 20 Sep 2016 04:09:21 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2637Right…I’m back over here briefly. The new new book is now over 60,000 words, but there’s an interruption right now because page proofs arrived today and need to be worked on promptly. And I have a Vatta short story to make jell for an anthology with a closer deadline than the book. As often with short stories, it doesn’t want to jell. It wants to either grow to a novel or shrink to an anecdote. Neither is acceptable.

Other LifeStuff is shoving in and demanding its due. I’m slowly getting stronger, but the weather is SO HOT that outdoor exercise is still not really possible. Today I walked and did some pruning for about 25 minutes, at which point the sweat was running down my face and back and I needed to get inside out of the hot humid non-air. (It felt like breathing through a thick wet sponge.)

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=26375Home Againhttp://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2634
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2634#commentsFri, 26 Aug 2016 00:35:24 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2634I survived WorldCon by not doing a lot of things I normally do (none of the evening/night events or activities), but I made all my panels and managed a couple of dinners with friends. Aside from that I went horizontal as much as possible. It may or may not have fended off con crud (certainly people near me were sneezing and coughing, and I sometimes sneezed or coughed without feeling sick–the air was dry, then there were storms, then it was dry and windy.) Interesting people met on the trains and also at the convention. I fell madly for the nearest (fantastic!) grocery store, Consentino’s Market and wished for a fridge and a kitchenette. Wow, the meals I could’ve cooked. And eaten. Amazing produce. Amazing cheese selection. Amazing bakery. Amazing meats and seafood. AND they also had hot food and made custom sandwiches and, and, and…

A good crowd at my signing and at my reading. Full table at the kaffeeklatsch. Generally excellent panels. Generally excellent co-panelists, etc., and good folks all around. Some lovely things in the Dealers’ Room, but I ended up with books, as usual, even though very tempted by hand-painted silk scarves. They just weren’t the right colors for me. Larry Smith was in good form in his “book room” and sure enough…that’s where my money went. The KC convention center is HUGE and there was a lot of walking on hard floors, some of it at speed (some of us gave up on the green room’s allures early on because our panels were so far from it, that it was difficult to get there on time if we got to the green room at the time recommended. This is NOT a slam at the convention, which had to work with the rooms as they were. Just a reality we dealt with.) The one panel I moderated really didn’t need a moderator (thank you, kind panelists.)

I was accosted after one panel by a woman who mistakenly thought I was an M.D., and told me all her reasons for anger with the medical profession in a taut, hostile voice, on and on and on (she did have a very unfortunate set of circumstances) and finally said “So YOU’RE a doctor…!” and when I said I wasn’t, she was sure I was, and I finally convinced her…and that took the wind out of her sails only briefly, because then she went on and on into other miseries of her life until finally I had to go…and seemed disappointed I couldn’t stay and let her vent more. Sad. Wish she’d say all that to the specific doctors she’s sure mishandled things.

Feeling tired still, so that’s all the convention report here for now, except that there were Paks fans there, and some good questions about Paksworld stuff.

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=263413Vanishmenthttp://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2631
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2631#commentsMon, 15 Aug 2016 03:41:38 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2631I have only one more day to prep for the two-day trip to KC, so tomorrow I won’t be logging on. Then I’ll be gone somewhat over a week (two days on the train coming home, too.) If any of you are going to WorldCon, I hope to see you there. Meanwhile, if you’re being drenches in rain, please don’t drown…and if you’re stuck in the horrible heat, please be careful of heat injuries.

So we have a cover now, and there’s supposed to be a live pre-order link on Amazon tomorrow (unless they meant next Friday.) If you go over to the Universes blog, you’ll see that the cover doesn’t show immediately because–to my surprise–that theme won’t let me post an image at the top of a post, and even when the post is re-ordered to put it below the cut, it shrinks it. I may have to find a new theme, but I love the banner image as it is, and don’t have time to go through the thousands of WP themes to find one with the same size space for it. The little gold-red streaks on the cover image are wind-blown sparks.

Cold Welcome copy edits will ship back to publisher tomorrow. Then it’s full attention on the new new book for which no title has yet shown up in my head. It’s the sequel to this one.

So…where is Ky Vatta and what is happening? The incident shown on the cover isn’t actually in the story proper, but the feel of what’s happening is. This is not the homecoming Ky anticipated. (It’s not home, for one thing.) She’s not eager to come home, since home was obliterated in an attack, along with her siblings and parents, but this…is definitely not the kind of trouble she was thinking of. She faces challenges unlike anything she’s done before, and the experience she’s accumulated isn’t the experience she needs.

…that visa problems might still exist in the far future worlds science fiction writers write about? Surely future political entities will have better solutions than we have…won’t they? (Plot Daemon says “Bwah-ha-hah-hah-hah-haaaaa….”) And rules about who is really a citizen…and problems with missing paperwork…and what happens if you’re deported from your own planet and you haven’t ever done anything wrong there?

NewBook progresses, still generating plot and complications in a healthy way.

Addendum July 26 Comment posted by Elizabeth:

Lordy, lordy, this is being fun. No, the characters aren’t having fun. There’s frustration on all sides. Officialdom is annoyed with people who don’t tick all the boxes, fill in all the blanks, sign on dotted lines, get things notarized, and then stand patiently in line for hours… (yes, I was caught in a bureaucratic paper-pushers’ delight a couple of weeks ago, and got to watch other people have a worse time than I did. Then watch a nearby city’s evening news report on the “new mega-center” that the online stuff kept directing me to because it was “faster.” It wasn’t faster; it was jammed and people who weren’t there at 5 am weren’t going to get whatever it was they needed done. Thank you SO much, Texas legislature.) Anyway.

For the writer, the chance to make use of such experiences is one of the things that makes them bearable. The other thing is knitting. Knitting is perfect when you have to wait…and wait…and wait…and wait.

People who say they aren’t patient enough to knit sit or stand in line jittering and fussing, and miserable, while I am adding rows to a sock. It becomes a game. How many stitches or rows can I do before the line moves again? How many while waiting for my number to be called? And it amuses others who are waiting, at least some of them. At least one person in any room is either a knitter, or a relative of someone who knits/knitted or crochets/crocheted. Someone will ask what it is, or if the yarn is wool or cotton, or comment on the colors. And often we can get a lively discussion going that’s not about how slow the line is.

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=26221The Dun Mare’s Grandchild, Episode 4http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2619
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2619#commentsSun, 17 Jul 2016 14:27:03 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2619When the storm passed, they rode on, over the melting lumps of ice and the wet grass. Oktar’s sheepskin, sodden with rain, hung over his horse’s rump; he walked, leading his mount, his bare feet so cold from the ice he could not feel the bruises. His grandfather rode ahead, not speaking to him, but muttering continually to the horses, who bobbed their heads as if they understood.

Home was too far behind to imagine, that cold night.

Two days later, they topped a rise to see far ahead a herd of animals grazing on the plain. His grandfather stood up on his horse, shading his eyes.

“See pole? See colors?”

Oktar had no idea where to look, but in trying to follow his grandfather’s gaze, saw a flash of color that was not grass or rock: red. Fluttering.

“Is ours,” his grandfather said. He threw back his head and let out a long, wavering cry, then another, then barked like a dog four times.

“What is—”

“Quiet. Wait.”

Oktar looked around, seeing nothing but grass blowing in the wind, hearing nothing but wind hissing in the grass. The herd was mere dark specks against the tawny grass, moving slowly away from them.

Then–between one turn of his head and the next–someone appeared, not four horse-lengths away. Man and horse, the man sitting as Oktar’s grandfather sat, as if his backbone grew from the horse’s back. The same dark hair, but unstreaked by any gray, hung in braids adorned with beads and feathers. A horsefolk face, wide, the color the townsfolk called saddle leather, high cheekbones under ruddy cheeks, black eyes like his grandfather’s and his own. The same clothes, with the same pattern woven into the pants and shirt-sleeves, the long shirt belted, the vest over it open in front, showing a red lining. On his head a twisted scarf, red and yellow, with one end hanging down behind. And on this man’s feet, knee-high boots whose soles were embroidered in brilliant colors, set with chips of bone or shell. The man had pulled his toes up, as if to make sure they saw every detail of the intricate design.

How did he walk on those, Oktar wondered. He must, but how? The colors were bright, undimmed by dirt. He glanced at his grandfather. For a long moment, his grandfather did not move or speak. Then his grandfather tipped his head up toward the sky and began chanting in the horsefolk tongue. The other man said nothing, sat motionless on his horse. His grandfather paused in the chant, and gestured at Oktar, then fell silent.

The man looked at Oktar. He had the same beady black eyes as Oktar’s grandfather and father, with the same tattoos in swirls and dots covering the heart-hand side of his face, and the same expression on it: contempt for the boy who didn’t measure up. The man opened his mouth and said something short and emphatic. Oktar couldn’t understand the words, but the tone confirmed the eyes: contempt.

His grandfather rode forward, held out his withered arm, and shouted, as loud as Oktar had ever heard him, right in the man’s face; the man’s horse pinned its ears and pivoted away. The man jerked the rein, brought it back around. The two men stared at each other a long moment, silent.

Then the man uttered another phrase, in a completely different tone, turned his horse, and the horse picked up a brisk trot.

“Come!” Oktar’s grandfather followed the man without a backward look, only that one word, and Oktar rode after him, his stomach clenching.

These were “his people?” This man, of the same tribe as his grandfather and father, this man who disliked him on sight, as the horsefolk back in town had, as everyone had? Would he ever find anyone who would give him a chance?

For the first time since leaving home, the hateful voices in his head drowned out everything around him. The boys at the grange, the horsefolk adults, the Marshal, the market judicar, everyone he had ever known: they all hated him; they always had.

He glared at his grandfather’s receding back, at the other man. He hated them–the way they sat their horses, the way they looked at him, the way they rode on paying no attention to him, despising him.

He yanked at the rein; his horse threw its head up but stopped. The distance between him and his grandfather lengthened. Fine. Let him go on. Let him go back to the tribe; they were not Oktar’s people. Not now, not ever.

He pulled his horse’s head around and booted it in the ribs; it turned a tight circle, shaking its head. It wanted to follow the others. But he did not. He would go back–not to the same house, to his father’s anger and his mother’s scoldings and the town that hated him. He would find another town. There must be one somewhere.

He tried again to turn his horse, this time using the few words he now knew, and the horse wiggled its ears, and took a few hesitant steps before trying to swing around again. He said the words again, louder, kicked with both legs, and the horse moved on the direction he meant. He sat back against the trot, kicked again, and it picked up a canter. Behind him, he heard a yell, the sound of hooves. He kicked, kicked with each stride, until the horse was galloping, then leaned forward. He had no thought left but escape, no thought of the days traveled, the food he did not have, anything but away, escape, freedom.

Then his horse skidded to a sudden halt, Oktar’s fingers and legs lost their grip, and he slid off the horse’s back, right over its lowered neck, onto the ground. Again. He wanted to sink into that ground before his grandfather arrived, before another humiliation. The ground did not cooperate. He blinked, opened his eyes, and saw in front of him two dark hooves, and between them a dark muzzle. His horse? He looked up, into the face of a horse he had never seen, a peculiar yellowish color, with a long dark forelock, and two astonishing dark eyes looking into his.

Whuff! Its breath smelled of the grass and herbs under his face. The nostrils quivered, coming nearer. Without thinking, he breathed back into them, lifted a hand to touch that muzzle. The horse’s upper lip extended a little, touched his hand, then the horse sniffed up his arm, finger to wrist to elbow to shoulder…and the next thing he knew had gripped his shirt in its teeth and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, setting him on his feet. Then it let go and stepped back.

Nearby, his horse stood, watching not him but the other horse. The new one, he could see now, had a body all that golden yellow color with legs dark to the knees and hocks, a dark mane and tail, and a dark stripe down the back. And–even he could tell this–it was a mare. Every story he’d been told brought a sudden chill down his backbone, weakness to his legs. This was a dun horse–a dun mare–a daughter of the Mare of Plenty, a mare among mares, the herd’s wise leader.

The mare cocked her head, then reached out and took his hand in her teeth. Her big square yellow teeth closed very gently around his fingers, then tugged just a little. He took a step forward. She released his hand, nodded like a human, came closer and butted him with her head. He stumbled back; she turned sideways to him, lowered her head to the ground and ripped up a mouthful of grass. One of those big dark eyes watched him; the ear on that side pointed to him. When he did not move, she gave another loud Whuff! and stamped the near foreleg.

He knew what she wanted. But it was impossible. If she was the Mare of Plenty, consort of the Windsteed, mother of all the herds of the horsefolk, no human dared mount her. She was not to be ridden.

The mare swung her hindquarters closer to him, and her tail lashed him. Then she presented her neck again, this time looking at him with both eyes, both ears pricked.

Get on, fool of a boy. Clear as if she had human speech.

Would she run away with him? Would she buck him off? Trample him?

Only if you stand there.

It was hard to take that step, hard to lift his leg and step over that lowered neck, hard to imagine what it would be like–and as he thought that, the mare jerked her head up and he found himself sliding right over her low withers and onto her bare back. She stood motionless a moment, then walked toward his grandfather and the other man, both of them now only a few lengths away, staring at him in a very different way.

His horse—the one he had been riding—trailed alongside, its head near the mare’s flank. As the mare walked toward, and then past, his grandfather, the two men turned their horses to ride one on either side.

“You were run away.”

His grandfather sounded scornful, as usual. But no familiar surge of anger came; he could scarcely recall what he’d been doing, or why. Under him, the mare’s back swayed, and from her emanated a sense of comfort and safety he had not felt since early childhood, since the days his mother had carried him, had protected him from the older children, before he knew that who he was, who she was, who they all were, made any difference.

“What means you?” his grandfather asked.

He had no words to answer he thought his grandfather would understand. “She came to me,” he said.

The other man laughed, and said something to his grandfather that made his grandfather laugh.

“She knows horse from ass,” his grandfather said. “You are son’s son after all.” He reined back, moved alongside the horse Oktar had been riding, and scooped up the trailing rein in his withered arm, grabbing it then with his good hand. He moved back up beside Oktar. “You take rein. I go.”

Oktar took the rein his grandfather held out; the other man said something emphatic to his grandfather. The words hissed and clicked; all three horses pricked their ears.

“It make trouble, I go there,” Oktar’s grandfather said to him. “I not go. He want, give me food. I stay here, but only tonight.”

“You’re leaving me? I can’t talk—”

“You learn. You learn, son’s son. You horse-folk. She says.” He pointed his elbow at the mare; she flicked an ear.

“But I don’t know—who is he?”

“Family,” his grandfather said. He waved his hand; the other man nodded, and kicked his horse forward.

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=261913The Dun Mare’s Grandchild 3http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2616
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2616#commentsTue, 12 Jul 2016 21:44:30 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2616When he had the flasks full; Oktar splashed back to hand them up. His feet were bruised by rocks, aching from cold. His grandfather looked down at him. “Drink one swallow. Then give flask. Catch your horse.”

His horse. He looked around wildly. His horse had crossed the stream and now grazed on the far side, the rein trailing.

“And take off socks before you walk on the land. Wring dry, tuck in shirt.”

The socks were not dry, but cold and damp when he dropped them down the neck of his shirt. Carefully, wincing at the rocks under his feet, he made it to the other side of the creek and up onto the muddy bank. The horse eyed him and ambled on a few steps. At least the ground, once he was up, had grass on it. He walked toward the horse; the horse moved away. No matter how he tried, he could not get within reach of that trailing rein.

“Sit down, fool! And call horse.”

He sat down: his legs were shaky anyway. But call the horse? How?

“I taught you horse-calling chant: were you not listening?”

That droning song? Oktar hadn’t understood any of the words, but the rhythm stuck with him. He tried it without words. His grandfather joined in, this time facing him; he tried to copy all the sounds. From behind him he heard a slight swish, then a warm breath caressed the back of his neck. Finally, the horse bumped him with its muzzle. Cautiously, he reached back with one hand and felt the rein in the grass and grasped it.

“Now you turn, sitting, and breathe into horse nose.”

That was ridiculous. But he had no choice; he wiggled around and faced the horse, whose muzzle was then only a handspan from his face. From here on the ground, the horse looked looked impossibly tall. The horse reached out to sniff, and Oktar breathed carefully into one of the large nostrils, then the other. The horse blew slobber all over his face. Oktar wiped it off on his sleeve, then reached out to scratch under the horse’s chin, something he remembered his father doing.

Oktar followed these directions with misgiving, and the horse’s abrupt lift almost made him fall again. He squirmed back to a balanced position, but behind him was the bulge of the pad and sheepskin. He had no idea how he was going to get back onto it. His grandfather offered no advice. Oktar tried one thing after another, finally discovering that bracing his knees on the horse’s shoulderblades and his arms on the neck allowed him to raise his backside enough to lift himself back into the hollow his morning’s ride had created.

“Follow me this way,” his grandfather said, and rode out of the creek on the far side.

Oktar’s horse followed. He sat on the sheepskin, his rump warming up a little, but the rest of him shivering in the wind that blew from the north down the little valley they followed. His damp socks, a cold lump next to his belly, warmed very slowly as he rode. He clutched the single rein tightly, not sure what to do with it–he had never seen a horse ridden with a single rein.

His grandfather sang. Oktar’s horse walked a little faster until it was almost beside his grandfather’s horse. His grandfather did not look at him. Sometime in the afternoon, when his clothes had dried, his grandfather handed him one of the flasks.
“One swallow. Don’t drop it.”

The flask had a thong loop through the neck. After taking a swallow, Oktar worked the end of the loop through his belt and around the belly of the flask, so it hung at his side, as his grandfather’s hung. They rode on. Oktar’s stomach ached, demanding food. He had no food. He wasn’t sure his grandfather had food. When the sun had dropped well behind one of the hills, his grandfather stopped his horse and rolled lightly off its back. He handed his rein to Oktar.

“Hold this. Wait.” He took a long time untying the pack, lifting it one-armed from the horse, opening it on the ground. Most of the bulk was a pair of wool cloaks; inside them were four small packets. Then his grandfather looked at him. “Get down. Do this.” He took the rein of his horse back from Oktar and tucked it into his belt.

Oktar slid off awkwardly, biting his lip when his bruised feet hit the ground. He tucked his rein as his grandfather had. His grandfather was doing something with the girth of his own horse’s pad. Oktar looked…there was a knot, sort of. He found it on his horse, worked it loose, then pulled off the pad and sheepskin.

“Take off this.” His grandfather was pulling the bridle off his horse; Oktar did the same, wondering how they would keep the horses from wandering away. But the two horses walked into the creek, drank, then set to grazing along the creek’s edge.

Supper was a handful of raw oats–one for him, one for his horse, who lipped it from his hand and then walked off to graze again. He had never eaten raw oats; he had thought them food for horses. But he was hungry so he chewed and swallowed without complaint. His grandfather brought back some leaves of a plant Oktar didn’t recognize and gave him two. He ate the bitter leaves, drank the four swallows of water his grandfather ordered.

Oktar had never slept anywhere but on a straw-stuffed bag on the floor of his father’s house, where walls kept out the wind and rain. Now, for the first time, he lay on the ground under stars, wrapped in one of the cloaks, the hill wind finding every opening and every damp fiber of his clothes. His grandfather had shown him how to fold the pad to support his head, and use the sheepskin under his neck and upper body.

“Demons in ground steal heart,” his grandfather said. “Never lie down on ground without sheepskin.”

In the morning, he rolled the pack up with his grandfather’s instructions, put the pad and sheepskin back on his horse, then–this time without difficulty–got his horse to lift him up again. His grandfather made him get off. “Girth loose,” he said. Oktar tightened it until the old man nodded. The horse sighed heavily, but lifted Oktar up on its neck again. He squirmed back into place, wishing he wasn’t as sore.

“We go faster or no food,” his grandfather said. “Lean back.” And booted his mount into a bouncy trot.

Oktar’s horse followed, and Oktar grabbed for mane. Leaning back made no sense, but he did it, and then took the pounding on his tailbone until his grandfather said “Hyah!” to his horse and both of them broke into a faster gait. Smoother, too, a sort of up and down rocking motion.

The land came at them faster. Soon the creek was narrow enough to step over and then just a trickle in the grass, and the horses were lunging up a steeper slope.

“Hoy!” his grandfather said when they were high enough Oktar could see over the top; the horses slowed to a halt. On the far side of the rise, the land was a tumbled mass of hills, with a distant line of higher ground against the sky.

“We go down a little. Never stop on ridge.” His grandfather’s horse picked its way down slowly; Oktar followed. His grandfather’s horse stopped, lowered its head. “You never drop rein,” Oktar’s father said. “But you stand on horse back.”

To Oktar’s surprise, the old man bent over, put his crooked hand on his horse’s withers, got his knees on his horse’s back, and then stood up, still holding the rein in his good hand. He looked completely at ease. “You!” he said to Oktar.

Oktar used both hands on his mount’s withers and slowly–breathing hard–got his knees up. It felt far worse than sitting, sore as his rump was. He felt unbalanced and he wasn’t even on his feet.

“Look at hill, not grass!” Oktar obeyed. “Tuck feet under–stand!”

Wobbling, nearly-but-not-quite-falling, Oktar finally made it to his feet, arms wide, the rein still clutched in his sweaty heart-hand. He swayed, but caught himself…and then began to feel stable.

“Now we go,” his grandfather said, pulling on his horse’s rein. Up came the head. His grandfather said something in horsefolk talk, and his horse walked off, while he stood on its back as if rooted to it.

Oktar’s horse lifted its head–the movement of muscles in its back almost threw him–and walked after the other. Oktar half-crouched, trying to stay in balance with it, but they were going down-slope, the horse picking its way with uneven steps over small rocks and around larger ones. Oktar’s toes clung to the sheepskin, digging into the fleece…and there ahead was his grandfather, straight as a pole. He could see, from behind, how his grandfather’s knees were slightly bent, and his hips moved with the horse’s movement, while his shoulders stayed level. Oktar tried to copy that, but his legs were shaking with the effort by the time his grandfather turned to look at him.

“Now down,” his grandfather said, with a nod that might have been approval or not. He sat down on his mount, and did not wait to see if Oktar had made it back to the horse’s back before kicking his own into the faster rocking gait.

Oktar grabbed mane and managed to stay on, just barely. He reeled in the length of rein he’d let out. He was shaky, hungry, but…he had stood up on the back of a horse, a moving horse. He’d never done that before. None of the boys he’d fought had done that. He imagined showing them…but his grandfather’s horse jumped something ahead of him. He felt his horse gather itself, a great shove–a jolting landing–and he was off-balance, losing his grip on the mane–he was falling. He hit the ground hard, rolled over rocks and finally lay still, stunned. His shoulder hurt, his back hurt. He tried to sit up and his head spun. He heard hoofbeats coming toward him.

“Is not my blood! Must be false.”

Oktar looked. His grandfather was sitting on his horse, looking up at the sky. His own horse was standing a distance away, the rein dragging and the sheepskin pulled awry.

“Cannot be. My seed does not fall off horse. Twice in two days.” The old man spat aside. “Not my son’s son.

Something rumbled. Oktar stared. The morning’s milky blue sky now curdled into clouds, thickened more, darkened at the base, and a roiling tower of white rose high, gleaming in the sun.

“I try. I tell him. Has no…nothing of horse in him.”

A louder rumble, then a roar; Oktar’s ears popped. A cold wind buffeted him; the horses turned tail to it, heads down. He struggled to his feet, only to be battered by a fall of rocks–of ice, he realized, hard cold lumps falling out of the cloud that now broke right on top of him. He fell to the ground, covering his head with his arms, as the ice pounded his back, his legs, his arms. What about his grandfather? He tried to look; through the confusing blur of falling ice, he saw his grandfather’s horse…and on the ground, a dark lump. His grandfather was down? Hurt?

Despite the battering ice, Oktar forced himself up, staggering, slipping on the ice that now covered the ground, ice-rocks battering his head, to get to his grandfather. His grandfather lay still, his pack over his head.

“Granfer! Are you–” At the sound of his voice, his grandfather peered out from under the pack.

“You! Why come?”

“I thought you were hurt.”

“Use eyes. Under horse no ice falls. Put head under.”

Oktar put his head under the horse’s belly, above his grandfather. Nothing hit his head. A last few lumps of ice pounded his back and legs, and then it was rain, hard and cold. He shivered; he couldn’t help it. Then his teeth chattered. His grandfather blew a long, horselike sound through his lips.

“Get under all the way, stupid one.”

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=261610Nose to the Grindstone (Mirrored from Universes blog)http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2614
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2614#commentsTue, 12 Jul 2016 00:32:18 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2614In the “where are we now?” category, the book is, as of today, at 16,000 words (still short fiction of the novelette or novella type) and 83 manuscript pages. The good news is that story is flowing. It’s going nonlinear in the “threaded plot” sense, as Aunt Grace, Rector of Defense, has just gotten home to find her place booby-trapped, while Ky, at dinner in another location, is about to be unpleasantly interrupted by the persons who rang the doorbell there, and a character from Cold Welcome has taken on a new identity.

A healthy book, at this point, should be accreting material–characters, plot hooks that will link to other plot bits later, details that will form a consistent background. Some of the accretion will be plot drivers (or at least attachment points) and some won’t, and it’s impossible to know at this stage. But it should begin to have both momentum (like impulsion in horses–the desire to go forward) and a sort of gravitational field that draws in “story stuff.” When a book doesn’t do that, it may not be destined to be a book, so the first 100 pages really matter even if they’re later discarded for a different beginning. A healthy book “wants to be written.”

It has acquired a good, strong, new character who immediately produced abundant backstory that connects well with the others this character needs to work with. It’s good to have new characters entering a multi-volume story. (Where do new characters come from? Memories, of course, with a mashup of people the writer’s known, but also from chance meetings, when you’ve been thinking “I need a character with this sort of look, this sort of personality” and you walk into a school or store or airport and there they are, right in front of you. The person you see is remade for the story, of course–this character will be most like the real person in appearance, least like him on the inside–but the real person was tickling my writer sense when I first saw him, and now he’s part of the story.)

The first fifty pages felt good; it’s still feeling good. A hundred pages is a safety marker…when my books die on the vine (and several have!) they do so earlier. Usually between 30 and 50 pages, more rarely between 50 and 100. So on I go, happier with each day’s work that doesn’t totally suck. (The suckage days will come later–they’re in the mix somewhere, every book but the first, and more in SF than in fantasy.)

I’ll be really happy at the 300 page mark, but it’s unwise to think hard about that until I’m closer to it. Best practice for right now is to show up for work, start typing, and let the story out a little more slowly than it could be pushed, as the well is filling back up.

]]>http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=26141The Dun Mare’s Grandchild, Part Twohttp://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2608
http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2608#commentsSun, 26 Jun 2016 15:33:37 +0000http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=2608As light revealed the land around them, Oktar knew they were north of the town, riding north, winterwards as the horsefolk said, and the reason he hadn’t been able to feel the rein was that he had none–his grandfather held Oktar’s horse’s rein as well as his own in his one good hand. The horses moved at a brisk walk, ears forward, alongside a stone wall with sheep on the other side of it. Oktar turned to look behind. Nothing of the town showed but a blur of smoke in the distance.

Eventually the stone wall turned away around the bulge of a hill, and nothing was in front of them but rolling land, grass with stones showing here and there, and clumps of trees in the hollows. Oktar no longer felt nauseated, but he was hungry and thirsty and all of yesterday’s bruises and scrapes hurt. So did his legs. Ahead of him, his grandfather’s back was straight, shoulders level, legs dangling easily.

That posture signaled, as clearly as words, that the old man did not want to hear anything from his grandson. Not complaints, not questions, not chatter. As day brightened around them, Oktar heard a new noise–a droning sound that he finally recognized as his grandfather…singing. Singing in the horsefolk tongue, of course. Oktar did not understand the words, and whatever it was had no melody like the songs the townsfolk sang in the taverns or while working at their crafts. What it did have was rhythm, the rhythm of the horses, of their hooves and the sway of their bodies, the swish of their tails. Oktar found himself humming in the same tuneless way, minus words.

They rode on through the morning, as the ground rose and lowered, but mostly rose. They passed through a wood where birds racketed away from them on noisy wings and out again onto a stony slope tufted with patches of reed. Oktar saw many trails beaten into the earth by unknown feet…some narrower, some wider. Sheep? Horses? Wild animals? He had no idea. He had never been so far from town; he had never meant to be where he was, and it confused him. So much sky overhead; so wide a land; so empty of people.

When the sun was high overhead, and they were riding alongside a narrow fast-moving stream, his grandfather stopped; Oktar’s horse stopped too, lowered its head, and blew a long rattling sigh. Now his grandfather turned to him.

“Ah. You did not fall off. That is good. We rest horses, water horses, let them feed.”

“We get off?” Oktar asked. He wanted to ease his legs, lie down on the grass and rest.

“No! We are horsefolk: we ride. Watch and learn, foal.” His grandfather nudged his horse into the water; Oktar’s followed, lowered its head to drink. His grandfather tossed Oktar’s rein back to him without warning; Oktar reached, but didn’t catch it, and almost fell off. The horse ignored the rein trailing in the water. “Dig your toes in the girth…lean forward, bracing on neck…pull up on mane behind ears.”

Oktar managed this on the third try, clutching his mount’s neck, and the horse’s head came up from the water.

“Now take rein,” his grandfather said.

Oktar let go the neck with one arm, and reached. His horse swung sideways, away from his weight. He fell into the cold water with a splash.

Oktar clambered up, fighting the pull of the knee-deep water, his wet wool clothes heavy with it, his feet flinching from the sharp edges of rock. His grandfather threw the flasks, again without warning; this time he caught one, but the other splashed in the water and immediately bobbed away.

“GET IT!” his grandfather said. Oktar stumbled and slipped downstream; his socks were no real protection from the rocks. Finally the flask caught between two rocks and he grabbed it before it slipped away, then splashed back to where his grandfather sat on his mount. “Fill.”

He started to dip the flasks in the water, but his grandfather growled. He stopped.
“Up there.” His grandfather jerked his head to indicate upstream. “Clean water. Not near horses.”